Climategate: CRU looks to "big oil" for support

More importantly… look at the year of the email… 2000 !!!

There’s also uea-tyndall-shell-memo.doc in the documents.
Talks of possible funding for Tyndall center from Shell in return for Shell being able to partially set the research agenda.

Imagine if DeSmogBlog had found emails from Richard Lindzen to Pat Micheals outilining a strategy of partnering with big oil companies to fund their research.
The warmers would be howling!
But I’m sure they will either ignore these emails or actually promote them as a sign that even big oil has joined their pseudo-religion.

A naive question: Which would it be Shell’s benefit?
Another naive question: Was it a competitor or someone not funded the whistleblower?

I remember when Exxon was big in oil shale and all the majors had coal divisions. They get hammered so long and sell struggling units. I suspect the Majors will spend money on climate research. it effects their economic forcasts for heating oil and natural gas. It costs a lot of money to evacuate drilling platforms and refineries. They have a duty to follow and study the weather. They are a lot cleaner in research and modeling than are the other earth scientists. Contrary to the claims from the extremists, the Oil companies are good citizens. Exxon collects and remits 100 billion dollars a year in taxes. During the Clinton years, everyone fed the erotic passion for the dot.coms. Well other than some payroll taxes, they were not paying income taxes. They lost money.

Big Oil is not in the oil business, they’re in the money business. If a firm sees a competitive advantage in causing their competitors distress (witness the UPS-vs-FedEx railway-labor-law dispute) then they’re going to do so. And they will pay attention to the political winds.
CO2 is the perfect trading commodity – it’s a product literally pulled out of thin air, and about which the general public has been convinced there’s something nefarious.
Want to get people’s attention? Start by banning carbonated soft drinks. More health benefit than a world of cap-and-trade laws.

@Jonsell
Shell is hedging bets versus legislation, if legislation like cap and trade comes down the pike, their lobbyists could use the fact that they were funding AGW research to earn them free credits, perhaps enough to be exempt from the program effectively, and perhaps even enough to sell at a profit.

“I think an investigation of industry supporters to Penn State, etc. etc. ”
Just make sure that the University at Albany is one of those et ceteras.

I may even have to change my moniker again to reflect my brightening nature! I will however continue to bear the onerous handle of INGSOC until freedom and truth are again prominent features in science. Heck, in life as well! Looks like it may not be a long wait.
I must say though, and I apologize for being a tad OT in editorializing a bit here. But as much as my hopes are lifting with the news these days, I am chagrined at the damage that has been wrought by those who supposedly spoke for environmentalism. The truly saddening thing is that real environmentalism was hijacked by what can only be described as a large and malevolent group of ideologues bent on advancing a religio-political agenda at the expense of what should be a noble goal. Environmentalism will have a tough time recovering from the damage brought upon it from the likes of Gore, Suzuki, Mann/Jones/Schmidt/Hanson etc. etc. I believe the political left in North America has also been corrupted by the same conniving wannabee dictators. I know a poor few friends that are still “left of centre” that are also skeptics, but are more or less without political affiliation due to their adherence to truth; and the sorry lack of a party on the left that places honesty before a corrupt ideology.
Things are looking up though!

“A naive question: Which would it be Shell’s benefit?”
As background, Shell has a lot of off-shore gas rigs in the North Sea and a large part of the undersea pipeline network which brings the gas onshore. These fields are approaching the end of their useful life.
I went to a conference at the Royal Society a few years back, which had the chairman of Shell as one of the speakers. He was spouting the normal warmist line and going on about carbon-capture coal power stations.
His interest was in pumping the CO2 out through the pipeline network to the offshore rigs, and pumping it down into the exhausted gas reservoirs.
Naturally, Shell would be paid for getting rid of the CO2. Also, they would defer the abandonment costs of the pipe and rig infrastructure for a couple of decades.
When the government is offering taxpayers’ money for free, you don’t need much of a commercial instinct to figure a way to get your snout into the trough.

If you’re not in the game you’re assured of losing. I don’t blame Shell et al from getting involved. New energy sources, new energy markets, grants, and legislation demanding they do as ordered. It’s a legitimate business hedge. Large banks are also involved as they set up mechanisms for carbon trading etc, though I wonder if those investments have now gone south and they’ll be stuck with big write-offs… again.
It’s nice to see that the warmers went gun-in-hand to extort money. To bad that, even though the gun was loaded, the barrel was pointed the wrong way when it went off.

Hat tip to Ray in 1st comment on this thread, where his sharp eye caught caught the year = 2000 in the email header. IOW:
They’ve been trying to milk this for almost TEN YEARS.
JHFolsom is also correct: Shell is just hedging its bets versus legislation; in an ever-more hostile legislative environment. Can’t blame them for that.
BUT: IF there was any justice (don’t count on it), this would be the end of the shrill ”skeptics are just shills for Big Oil” mantra by the AGW crowd.

Carbon Capture and Storage ==> CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSGm18AJaMkk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_oil_recovery